Mondays With Morty: Offbeat Lessons for Success by Jim Tilberry

Jim Tilberry’s Mondays With Morty: Offbeat Lessons for Success is a hilarious romp about an unlikely duo and the exploration of success.

Poetry graduate Walter has a terrible low-paying job, no prospects for a better one, no girlfriend, his car is falling apart, and he has to sponge off his parents to survive – an underachiever all around, or as his mentor puts it, a loser. His mentor is Morton J. Goldberg, known as the Professor to his underlings (even though he’s far from one), and every Monday he and Walter meet to discuss the secrets of success.

This setup works wonders for the comedy, as Morty drags Walter around town, telling him never to shake hands, only punch shoulders, reach for the stars (but mind your champagne) and that 90% of life is picturing women naked. Far from being a work of staid self-help – as the title might suggest – the book is really playing with the genre, giving a lesson that’s at once satirical and more true to life.

The writing is effortless to read, coming from Walter’s point of view, who’s comically downcast and inept throughout. However, the dialogue is at times a little stilted, which is a large part of how the book tells its story. The best jokes come through in the narration and in the Sancho Panza-esque trust that Walter holds in Morty, and those moments are truly funny, which holds the entire book together.

An unconventional work of fiction, Mondays with Morty is packed with funny, unexpected moments, which will be especially entertaining to anyone who has dipped their toes in “Get Rich Quick” self-help books.